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tv   Squawk on the Street  CNBC  November 27, 2015 9:00am-11:01am EST

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drugs should never be acceptable in the office. he says that drug use might explain bad software in the valley. how do you like that idea. some of those beta versions not as up to snuff as they should be. >> or your app doesn't work as it should. thank you very much. >> my pleasure. >> michelle. >> thank you. >> right now it's time for "squawk on the street." ♪ good friday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl kwinquintanilla. jim is off. we assess the state of retail on this black friday. relatively flat session in europe, although, shanghai down over 5% as regulators reportedly crack down on some security firms. bonds and oil, no real data.
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of course, the jobs number next week. we begin with good, not a great. that's how one group is describing black friday retail sales. live checks from malls across the country. plus, a lawsuit against sumner redstone making some shocking allegations. we'll have more on what that means for viacom and cbs and their response. and vladimir putin saying he will cooperate more with the terror fight in syria, but the war of words between russia and turkey continues. first up, though, black friday has arrivinged, one of the biggest shopping days of the year. good but not a great from customer growth partners. also seeing an increased trend of shoppers earlier with retailers opening the night before. the nrf says 22% of consumers expect to shop on thanksgiving day, up from 18% last year. out of the stores, adobe predicts a record $1.7 billion spent online.
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$3 billion on monday. in fact, there's a sense that because so much of the shopping, guys, has shifted to online, essentially customers wait for monday to get things going. >> that's been the question in recent years. how many shoppers will actually show up in stores for deals. i think the context is key here. that is for retailers, it's been a really mixed bag. we talk about consumer discretion nair stocks. that does include names like netflix and other internet retailers. if you look at the s&p department store index, for instance, which is macy's and nordstrom, it's gone in the complete other direction. it's actually down. there's the chart for the day. corn super discretionary, up. that's why it's going to be so key for them to get excited. even if they're going to entice consumers with promotions and bargains. >> is there any real reason to expect that the trend that's
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been going on for some time is somehow going to reverse? >> i mean that's going to be the trick. target, for instance, has really racked up its online presence, trying to go up against amazon. it's going to be factors like that. the weather is not helping. 60 degrees in new york. if those stores are selling parkas and puffy coats, they'll have to do it at 50% off to get them interested. as analysts told us, it's about capturing market share and sales. it's still a very important week for them. still 20% of holiday sales for the retailers and holiday sales are 20% of overall sales for the retail sales. >> for a closer look at how things are shaping up, let's get to courtney reagan who's at woodfield mall outside chicago in schaumburg. hi, courtney. >> reporter: happy friday. they expect another 100 million
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to come out in stores and online. some got an early start on thursday on thanksgiving. pretty big numbers that we're getting from across the country. and as much as 20% of retailers' holiday sales can come from this weekend, so it remains a very important one. retail firm jjl says 90% of its traffic is stronger than last year. you might remember last year was a bit more muted than perhaps we've seen in years past. now, we've talked to a number of shoppers here at woodfield mall that come out every year. they're still going strong. take a listen. >> looking forward to the sales. we can't cover everything on friday. we've got to wait for another day. it's like disney. you can't do it all in one day. >> reporter: now, walmart's chief merchandising officer says he would classify it as calm and
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safe. lots of families shopping together with pretty full carts. electronics really led the way and walmart's bratz by said the roku tv as well as the 40-inch tvs across all of the brands were the bestsellers. adobe sales including beats by dr. dre and i know that you mentioned it earlier but it bears repeating. adobe says online sales for thanksgiving day top 1g$.7 billion. that's up 22% from last year. today they're looking at $2.7 billion. so shopping is happening. in stores and online. i know we talk a lot about the graying of black friday, but it is still expected to be the heaviest volume shopping day that we'll see all year. back to you. >> yep. still very important for those retailers. courtney reagan, thanks very much.
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here's what was said about sales. >> last night was clearly the kickoff to thanksgiving shopping. it was a combination of online sales. macy's has the second largest business in america today. it was very strong combined with our store business. that's what it's all about for us. >> omni channel is the buzz w d word. susan, i guess we'll start with you and go straight to a live report from the wall. can you confirm what terry lundgren was saying? how is the traffic at this hour? >> yes. i think definitely consumers are
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starting to shop earlier like we were talking about. last night was very crowded. overall i would say pretty strong traffic. >> so, neely, would you agree? "the new york times" busy section today has three articles. the graying out of black friday, door busters, no, and black friday bargains are fewer than you think. there's a lot of gloom and doom when it comes to major headlines. do you agree or do they have it wrong? >> i think they have it wrong this year. holiday has kicked it dead. we saw in minneapolis last night and again at 5:00 a.m. this morning the weather cooled and she showed up and she's converting. that's a very good sign.
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you say jcpenney is a winner. why? >> they opened first. jcpenney absolutely won. but was really a great, a lot of people on black friday going for an item and they leave with an item. they went in for an item and came out with a store. that's how you win at black friday. >> neely, it's coming at a time when you've got the savings rate at 5.6. spending running at 0.1. do you agree with susan that black friday is in any way rejuvenating a more abundant consumer? >> we think this year has been largely an issue of discretionary time, not dollars. it was so gorgeous this fall across the nation. she chose to spend time with her family and outside. we saw it in google and
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facebook. now it's time to get the job done. >> we showed the chart, the s&p department store's index going down. trouble with macy's, nordstrom's, and walmart. and consumer discretionary stocks in general having a very good year. is there any reason to think these department stores can turn it around this holiday season? >> yeah. i think definitely consumers, you know, weekdays, are spending a little bit less on apparel these days. you know, i think that they're buying more electronics. they're looking for more leisure activity for outdoors, which is why we're more focused on the athletic retailer too. that said, we think this holiday season, under armour is going to be a big winner out there. >> you do see promotions on athletic wear like under armour and nike? that's always been the thing. they've been able to keep their retailers because you don't
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usually see a lot of discounting activity. is that changing? >> yes. i think especially with the warm weather, there are some things that are not moving, the hoodies and the fleece. that's kind of where we're seeing the promotions this holiday season. but i think they have other items selling very well at full price. they're selling very well given the warm weather. that will probably offset that. >> neely, what are you seeing in terms of promotions and discounts and what that's going to imply? >> we've been tracking promot n promotional activity for 20 different retailers. we saw 70% of our retailers that we track. you know, in fact, i'd note that more exclusions existed this year than last year, which is also a positive sign, but we saw 15% retailers. they have lower promotion this year versus last year, so we think overall it's not a bad start to a good holiday season. >> all right, guys. thanks for joining us to kick
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off our black friday discussions. much more to come. susan anderson, neely ta min ga of piper jaffray. good to see you both. >> thank you. it was a shock. the former live-in girlfriend claimed the 92-year-old share holder is unable to speak, eat on his own, and unfit to make decisions. redstone's attorney called it baseless saying it's a meritless action riddled with lies and a despicable invasion of his privacy. it only shows she'll stop at nothing to pursue her personal financial agenda. she claims she filed it on behalf of him. they go on to say it's prepolls truss. you can see the shares did have a nice move there. they're also look up this
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morning. all of this, of course, goes to the larger question, which is whether or not he's 92 or even old e 93 or 94. mr. redstone certainly toward the end of his years and the question becomes what will happen to viacom. now, what will happen to viacom perhaps should he be deem not in a capacity to be its chairman of viacom/cbs. although, again, his lawyers make it clear it's baseless allegations from miss her zer and a record she's building. they say it has nothing do with any present concern for his protection. in the lawsuit they do go on as well to state -- i think we have this in text. mr. red stone's 92 years old. he suffers from impaired mobility, has had a substantial speech impairment that makes it difficult for him to communicate
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with newcomers unfamiliar with his speech pattern. they say all that's left is an elderly man subjected to discomfort and indignity of strangers. indignity of examination. by strangers because of a former friend claims to know better than the relevant treating physician and geriatric psychiatrist. that trust includes sherry redstone, sumner's daughter as well as his grandson, tyler. it will be seven people overall who willed a jude indicate that trust. and there is nothing that says there is going to be a for sale of any kind when the day does come however many years it may be that mr. redstone passes away. always a difficult subject to discuss, of course, somebody's health, somebody who i spent a lot of time with, enjoyed seeing, have not seen in a
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number of years. but certainly a towering figure, if you will, and a towering personality to match is mr. redstone, sara. the tax bill from the e estate which will be generate cleveland be paid off by the trust and the dividended generated through cbs and viacom. they'll have ten years to do so. so those speculating perhaps doing so at their own risk, but we'll see. certainly if he were to be deemed mentally incompetent in some way. the ceo of viacom is also the person who is dealing with that or will make those determinations so to speak. >> i guess i mean besides the salacious details and you don't want to get into the lawsuit stuff, he's still in his 09s. there's still a question of secession and the company.
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the backstory is advertising. they take in television, watch television. that poses existential questions with an article like that. >> it does. one of the largest issues is viacom did not have it, one would wonder if they would still be running the company given the difficulties they have had as sara mentioned both in the advertising market and yourall. >> they're going to fight it. >> i'm read 1g 23 pages d123 pa >> holiday reading. >> yes. coming up, a look at which retail sales might be in the hot seat. but first vladimir putin saying he's ready to cooperate with the air strikes but
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continues to spar with turkey. we'll take another look at the futures. we'll get to disney and its 10k they filed on wednesday night. what they're talking about regarding espn subs. a light volume day is expected and the stockmarket closes at 1:00 p.m. eastern. we're back in a moment. here at td ameritrade, they work hard. wow, that was random. random? no it's all about understanding patterns like the mail guy at 3:12 every day or
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vladimir putin hosted french president francois hollande. this as the war of words between russia and turkey continues. our jeff cudmore is in moscow now. hi, geoff. >> reporter: that's the meeting with francois hollande. the message is there is room for further intel sharing and there will be an escalation of strikes against isis targets and both the nato community and ruf will work together to identify isis targets. that's a positive stop here because in that press
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conference, president putin used the opportunity to again bring up the issue of this downed russian jet and he made allegations that the turks knew where this jet was because russia has been giving information to the american-led coalition and he called turkish claims to the country lame. well, that then kicked off a round of very undiplomatic language. president urd one has come out and said president putin shouldn't play with fire. so far he has refused to apologize for the downing of that fighter aircraft, and he has also hit back at allegations that turkey is taking isis oil by saying russia's ally syria is, in fact, the one who is paying for oil from the terrorist organization. so while we may have seen some progress, carl, in that meeting with francois hollande and president putin, the
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undiplomatic language continues and the russians for their part are still looking at how they may levy economic sanctions against turkey in retaliation for the shooting down of that aircraft. back to you. >> geoff cutmore from moscow. thanks so much for that. when we come back, we'll get an idea on what to expect. also the ceo of ethan allen and what the furniture store is doing to boost sales. a lot more "squawk on the street" from post 9 returns in a moment. but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy for my studio. ♪ and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands
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just about minutes till the bell. good to have you back, sarge. >> nice to be here. >> you're not, i would say, overwhelmingly positive about the consumer going into this black friday? >> well, i think there will be disappointment. i myself like a lot of traders, we kind of beefed up on the retail sales. at least i took some money off the table wednesday. aisle probably take more off today. >> what about the plunge and the set-off. does that concern you? >> it does concern me. europe kind of wobbled a little bit when it happened, but they recovered. they were in the green. they were in the green yesterday nicely. i think it may be something we miss. >> well, the reason for it
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they're attributing is the expansion of this propose which wouldn't feel like it would affect -- maybe it affects the chinese economy. certainly it doesn't affect us here, does it? >> no, no, it does not. they're still evolving in that regard and they'll continue to do so. >> what's important to keep in mind for next week? >> we've got a few things. we've got mario draghi, we've got the jobs numbers and -- >> your expectations for draghi. it's a big expectation. he's talked loudly. does he carry the big stick? >> i think they're going to add some muscles. it's a matter of how much muscles they add. >> meaning what? duration? >> duration and size. i'm not willing to gauge how big
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they go. i think -- you can see by the way the european equities have traded. >> i don't know. the euro is getting hammered again. >> good luck, sarge. >> thank you very much. >> we'll get the opening bell in just four minutes. announcer: if you'd give thanks for a better night's sleep... [barks] sleep train has just the ticket. [train horn blares] through thanksgiving weekend at sleep train get three free gifts with selected mattress sets! save up to $300 on beautyrest, posturepedic, serta, even tempur-pedic! plus, get up to four years interest-free financing! but sleep train's thanksgifting sale ends sunday! ♪ sleep train [train horn] ♪ your ticket to a better night's sleep ♪
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"squawk on the street" live from the financial capital of the world. opening bell in just a minute's time. a lot of employees' kids down there. i guess it's become something of a tradition. >> they've set up tables and chairs. >> it lightens the mood. >> and santa's here to ring the opening bell. that helps. >> we're watching opening bell. traffic pattern at the malaysia has changed as shopping online has become more of a phenomena.
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but the nrf says 100 million expected to shop. there's the opening bell and a look at the s&p at the bottom of your screen at the bigboard. the marine toys for tots foundation, santa ringing the bell for the second consecutive day over the merchandise retailers bed bath & beyond. i'll tell you what's getting a lot of attention is disney. the 10 k. they lost 3 million subs in the fiscal year putting a number on what iger had said were some subscriber losses. >> yeah. they list current subscriber levels at 92 million. it does appear that over the last two years, carl, they've lost as much as 7 million subs. that's not an insignificant amount, certainly when you
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consider how much money disney takes in for each espn subscriber in terms of what you're paying for the service to your cable company. you can get caught up in the acronyms that they all like to use. it's main concern as you watch cord cutting and cord shaeving. that being the smaller packages that become more readily available that don't include espn and those who choose to cut entirely getting video via cable, perhaps only taking it via broadband. >> gaining subs overseas, though, we should mention. espn is not alone in this. they talk about numbers at disney channel, disney xd, losing $5 million over the last five years. it's changing. >> the question is how fast will it occur. there are those who are still waiting for it to occur and
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suddenly they'll argue the suddenly is now here. we've been waiting for it for years and we're now in the midst of a seminole change. and it will show itself in, of course, the lower and lower totals of people who take the package, so to speak. there's the counter argument that says, hey, the package is a good one from an economic standpoint. it probably makes sense to have the so-called bundle. >> well not a secular issue, clearly helping disney is the "star wars." the craze has already begun. adobe has put out its numbers. they cited is to as a strong category driven in part by all the "star wars" toys. the movie doesn't come out until december 18th, but that helps. we're going to talk about what all of this means. >> disney, far and away the worst performing dow component at the moment even though the
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majority of the components are in the green. retail, we talk a lot about -- phil lebeau is going to talk to us about how carmakers are trying to make black friday a day to go out and buy a car. ford has a full page ad. 20% on the month. fiat. so watch out when we get the sales for november. >> that's the place where we've seen it. it's been autos. on electronics. that's been strong. apparel, not so much. i'm looking at the sub industries, all doing well, the footwear category. retails. consumer electronics, all of
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those sort of sub s&ps are better. we'll have to see. so many numbers come at you during that day. it's hard to figure out what makes sense. we know that consumers are recovering. jobs are being created. consumers are spending a bit, but they're also saving more. we'll see how that impacts overall retail sales. >> watching some of the names that have given up a little bit of color on black friday, target, for instance, saying customer pickups up 35%. big debate. if you're a retailer, if you're going to try to copy the amazon model and deliver or if, in fact, as a retainer, you spent your entire life to get people to come into the store, if pickup is really the future. >> they got into some of the nitty-gritty about how difficult it is to make that pivot for a retailer like target. you have to pay people more to work on holidays to make sure they make it on time.
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that's what consumers have come to expect and all of that sort of reworks their model and how that weighs on margins in an already difficult time for retailers dealing with higher labor costs and lower traffic numbers and all sorts of other problems. >> right. of course, cyber monday is coming up. we'll see how that goes. soon after we always get that long press release telling us how much they sold of everything. how many times you can wrap it around the earth or send it to mars. it's always entertaining, and, of course, effective for their markets purposes. we should mention amazon shares up ever so lightly. ebay down, alibaba also down. actually down about 2%, which always has the effect of bringing yahoo! down which is about 1% this morning. >> dollar, new eight-month high. >> going strong. >> mary thompson is on the floor seeing what's moving. good morning, mary. >> hey, there, carl. kind of quiet. no surprise. it's expected to be a light day
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of trading. it closes at 1:00 p.m. eastern. look for light volume. certainly investors will be focused on any kind of anecdotes coming out of the retail space because that is the focus on this black friday. take a look at how the managements have performed this week. traditionally an up week for the markets going into the last hours of trading. we see the nasdaq and russells showing gains but the dow and s&p have been flat so far for the week. all of this coming on the wake of mixed markets overseas. the big market was at 5% plus decline in chinese shares. the shanghai composite overnight because of the expanding increase. all of this coming ahead of the decision as to whether or not to include the yuan. it is expected this time around. something that could move over a trillion dollar worth of assets
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into the yuan. the dollar, another eight-month high against the euro and that predictably is pressuring commodities with the exception of copper which is higher today. energy, though, right now crude oil is down just about 87 cents. $42.16 a barrel. we'll be watching to see how that reacts. that's, of course, been the primary drive over the markets this week. down about 2%. the primary driver will be the retailing group. we'll be talking about it all day long. so a quick check of the retailing index, actually higher right now. and just taking a look at some of the stuff that was issued by adobe, they watch a lot of the online sales. a couple of interesting notes. they say the number of items that have been out of stock, they say it's double what it usually is. discount, very steep. 24%. that's likely, of course, to translate into lower margins or could translate into lower margins for retailers. as you see, macy's is the only
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one lower right now. we'll be watching them throughout the day. right now the dow is down 21 points. back to you. >> bigger promotions and sales, better for the consumer. mary, thank you. for more let's head uptown to bertha coombs. >> good morning. we've been watching some of the retailers here. we're watching them. it's kind of shifted each in the last ten minutes but when you look at some of the big consumer names, electronic arts is one of them. certainly this is a big time of year for a lot of those gain and with the new "star wars" franchises out there, that's one of the things they'll be watching for here. apple started off more positive, now slipped slightly into the red. one of the things target said, they sold a lot of over the last few days have been apple products. so this, again, is a big time for apple. we'll see whether it moves the needle in terms of some of those ipads and some of those other things besides the i phone. amgen also higher today.
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biotechs overall strong. amgen has applied with the fda to make a bio similar version of hue mara. it's an $11 billion drug a year. a lot of them are looking to make them. mark newton over at gray wolf says they've seen a nice bounce back and they're poised for gains. back to you. >> bertha coombs, thank you very much. jackie deangelis at the nymex. good morning, jackie. >> hi. we're expecting to see light volumes. and we're looking at oil prices down about 2% in this session. as you mentioned, gas prices, bob, as you mentioned are low. the last time i checked, the national average was around $2.06 but it was declining and that's something to keep an eye
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on. the last week or so, we've touched that level a couple of times and now holding. that's probably what'sed a adding the pressure in the commodity space today. what's more interesting in the metals complex is the action that we're seeing in gold. about a $15 move lower on this movie higher in the dollar index. but part of this also is because we have such a big week next week, expecting to hear from the fed, potentially get a december rate hike that everybody has been looking for. that will really not be a positive thing for gold prices. really a surprising move today on low vacuum. back to you. >> jackie deangelis on oil, thank you. we go back to retail. for many shoppers, black friday started early as they looked for door buster deals on thanksgiving night. what are stores doing to attract them? let's go out to margaret brmorg who's at a target store in new
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jersey city. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. we're seeing things pick up after a pretty quiet early morning. so this store like the majority of the 1,800 target locations across the u.s. has been open since 6:00 p.m. last night. we caught up with shoppers in many of the electronics and toys area, the two strongest, to see what they're buying. >> a smart television. hopefully visit owe, samsung, for my daughter for college, getting ready for college next year. >> you have to get a smart tv. it's the hottest item of the season. >> tv and toys and look around for gifts for the family. >> i have two little girls. they want ipads. i went by best buy and they weren't open. i looked at my phone and saw target had some, so i came by here. >> so target as well as several other retailers starting rolling out door buster retailers early this week. it's offering free shipping on
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everything again this year and so far that strategy does seem to be working, the company saying thanksgiving was its busiest day for onlyme line sales ever, thereafter after rolling out a black friday preview. and also saying he expects demand to continue throughout the holiday weekend into december. take a look at shares at target. they're up by about half a percent. back to you. >> thank you very much. our morgan brennan. when we come back, a lot more from disney revealing loss sub losses on espn and here at herald square where they had the parade thursday. we'll get more when "squawk on the street" continues. a mind? a subconscious. a knack for predicting the future. reflexes faster than the speed of thought. can a business have a spirit? can a business have a soul?
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at the mercedes-benz winter event. it's the look on their faces that makes it all worthwhile. but, hurry, these offers end soon. thank you santa!!! ross else has finally lowered its security level from its highest level following the attack in paris. our julia chatterley is with us. good morning, julia. >> reporter: what this means is the risk of a terrorist attack here is now considered serious rather than imminent. that's interesting for a couple of reasons. first, this decision was made at
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least three days early and it followed three separate raids carried out in brussels yesterday. ultimately just why was the threat level reduced yesterday? what information did the government have here? now, this bhasen the criticism that they've received all the way along, that they're just not telling the people what's going on here. yesterday the prime minister pushed back on that and said, look, we're not creating the uncertainty here. it's the islamic state that is and we ultimately need to keep the information cards close to their chest. guys, i just want to give you a sense of where i am here because i think this is pretty important. i rorpted on monday when that threat level was initially raised. this street was pretty empty of people, the subways were closed. fast forward five days there are far more people around. i think the obvious comparison to make is security. there's still loads of security around. so just to give you a sense, there is uncertainty here. there's a high level of
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security, butl security, butl security, but ultimately it's a city coming back to life. >> thank you. live this morning from brussels. up next espn reporting following subscriber numbers. "star wars" trailer. and now the worst performer in dow down 3%. more "squawk on the street" when we come right back. through thanksgiving weekend at sleep train
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let's give you a look at the market on the shortened trading day. i hope everybody had a happy thanksgiving. let's call it flat on the day. media certainly the standout right now with disney as part of the dow down over 3% on those espn numbers. and speaking of that, well, disney did say in its 10 k annual report that subscribers at espn numbered about 92 million. and when you do the math and see what subscribers were not that long ago, you realize they lost as many as 7 million over the last couple of years since the top. but as for disney overall, disney hoping a new franchise can make up for the lack of it.
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there's the trailer. people trailing me a little bit here. very excited about that. let's get to barton now and get his take on exactly what -- well, first of all, let's talk with espn numbers. back in august, we watched all the stocks in question down sharply on the first signs, at least, commentary from disney that there were some sub losses. put this in perspective for me. more than you expected, less than you expected? >> well, the number in the k is old. this is a nielsen number for the end of september that we've had a couple of months now. there's no information here. we know the revenues, which are more important. we also know that these nielsen numbers are not really the best numbers. i mean it's interesting. iger said the nielsen numbers don't get paid on it so they're
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a misleading number. they put up about 8% normalized growth in affiliate feels where they endward you see the subscriber number for 92 million. the media stocks have recovered and i think they've recovered because people have seen it's not as bad as the real fearful story that came out of that second quarter report. you know, i they's the right way to look at it. i think with disney, you've got a good busy and you have things on a rocket ship ride when you look at the studio and consumer licensing and the theme park potential from that and that's enough to get you excited from here. >> right. you've got a great business in espn, but the fear has been for some time, of course, it won't be as a great as it has been and the overall fear you know covering the success tore is we're starting to see significant erosion in subscriber baless for many of these networks. are we at that point, martin, where it's something we're going to be looking at every month,
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every quarter, every year? >> i think people were of the mindset a quarter ale and what people see is it's not sn snowballing. you know, it's a little bit different than the overall industry number but i think the revenue trajectory is consistent with that 1.5% which is a number that's manageable with all the things you can do from selling online to online skinny bundles to launched new brands online and with someone like disney getting paid on a creative cycle. there's still a lot of ways to make a great money in this business and they could see good earnings growth as the properties roll out. >> so you clearly announcement the stock. you have a 126 price target. i think you wrote after last earnings that you do expect star walls to be a catalyst. what does that look like for
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investors because there was confusion as to when disney would start booking revenue for the "star wars"-related products. >> "star wars" touches in studio, lighting, and theme parks long term. it could be something that generated 1$1.5 billion to $2 billion. then you look at the sequel next year, "rogue one." if this mean does well, you'll take up your estimates for the sequel. "spider-man" went through $100 million of licensing fees when "spider-man" came out. this is really more than that. you look at shanghai and "star wars" attractions in the theme parks. the half of disney that's not in
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tv should be in a very good growth trajectory over the next few years as all of this ramps up. >> viacom was up but now there's a back and forth-between sumner redstone and imam weemanuelle h >> there's going to be a lot of focus on viacom. there's a lot to bemate made. i think there's going to be a lot of pressure from a lot of different directions to see that realized. so i think viacom, kind of at the opposite end of the spectrum for disney is interesting at this point right now. >> barton, we're going to leave it right there. coming up, we've got to much
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more on retail on this black friday. holiday spending. the dow is down 44 points. s&p 500 down 2 points, pretty much flat. we'll be right back. when you're not confident your company's data is secure, the possibility of a breach can quickly become the only thing you think about. that's where at&t can help. at at&t we monitor our network traffic so we can see things others can't. mitigating risks across your business. leaving you free to focus on what matters most.
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i'm carl kin ta nkne quintanilla along with sara ice never and jeff f. we keep an eye on oil. >> our roadmap starts with deals, deals, and more deals. online and in stores foot traffic is good but not a great. that's how analysts are describing black nid free tail sales. and vads mir putin says he'll cooperate but the war of words continues. and the lawsuit. more of what it means for
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viacom/cbs and redstone's response. we start, of course, with black friday. let's start with courtney reagan live at woodfield mall outside of chicago. courtney. >> reporter: good morning. i the lull appears to be over. i see families walking out with bags. that millennial shopper is still growing strong and that's the shopper we receive all night long. they come out for the deals, but it's also the experience and the tradition. take a listen. >> what are you shopping for? >> clothes, good deals, sweaters, jeans, socks, jewelry, purses. i've got teenage girls at home. >>'ve been shopping for others for christmas because i want to get my christmas shopping done, but i've also been shopping for myself because i'd love some new clothes. >> now they're checking out shopping malls as well as big
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box retailers around the country and he does characterize the traffic as lighter than what he's seen in years past but he does note many of the retailers are holding the door buffeter specials for longer with more inventory as well as offering them online hours earlier than in the store, which could explain some of the different traffic patterns we're seeing this year. piper jaffray calls out higher ploegsal levels on footwear, particularly calling out under armour and decker company which owns ugg. ralph lauren merchandising as well. when it comes to google trending, walmart's blackflie fy 2015 is hire. after that, statements. then kmart. when it comes to the social conversation. macy's and walmart took a lot of
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the share yesterday in part because of the macy's thanksgiving parade and a tweet by the boy band. then amazon started to take over the conversation and continues they this morning. target is, though, number two, when it comes to social conversation. kate spade getting 24% of the conversation on twitter -- or facebook and that's among the 30 top lifestyle figures. so a lot of kircht things going on. but i have to say the traffic looks pretty good. 100 million americans are expected to shop. back to you. >> yeah. still early in the day, too, court. thank you very much. our courtney reagan. disney, the biggest loser, dow down 3% after merchandising from the "star wars" film expected to bring in anywhere from $3 billion to $5 billion alone. our jane wells is live in san mateo, california, with more on that. hey, jane. >> reporter: well, the force is strong with disney, maybe not in the market but in the stores.
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we've been trying to figure out the comparison between disney's "frozen" a year ago. disney on its conference call said merchandise sales up due to olaf. if you're talk 3g billion to $5 billion, that is a lot of money. as for the licensees, the biggest winner is going to be hasbro. they're expecting to gain market share and earlier this year hasbro was saying after they were already starting to run short of items. but even mattel. you know, mattel you would think would be the loser in all of this. not necessarily because of its hot wheels decision. mattel could do very well. then, of course, the privately
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held lego. you know what, carl, here's the funny thing. you know, it's all about stall wars. here's a toys "r" us. you'd be surprised what kind of -- look it. they have plush toys for the kwauking dead, a daryl dixon plush toy. i may have to buy it. back to you. >> yes, you will. jane, you know, we've heard so much from retailers this season trying to make sure they have all of the skus in stock. is it your sense there are enough of these things for the people who get there in time? >> reporter: well, there certainly very this morning. i have to tell you it's a whole story of what black friday is and isn't anymore. last night at this particular store they were open from 5:00 to midnight. they said about 150 customers came in, 60,000 dlors worth of business. that was three times more than wednesday. when we got here this morning, dead, dead, dead, but right now
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they're having door busters and traffic is picking up again. black friday -- i've worked it many times. this may be the beginning of the end of the oh, my gosh, we've go tot get there in the morning because it's just not the same thing now. >> that's a good point. people who still go are actually -- this is just their thing, right? i think this is what we're getting a sense of this time around. jane wells in san mateo. thanks 678 for more on black friday shopping and thing let's brim in james o'shea. good to see you both. >> good morning. thank you. >> oliver, i think you've got estimates on what mall traffic will do and online traf look do, right? >> yeah. we're thinking mall traffic will be down in the 2 % to 3% range. keep in mind this is a big mobile holiday. mobile phone usage is growing at 40% to 50% and that could be
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about 20% of all of online sales. it's a big thing for consumers to have this real convenience factor with online being a big deal. >> so electronic sales are strong, charles? just thinking off jane's report that toys kbould a strot category not just as "star wars" was up. the birth rate went up for the first time in 2011. so analysts say the infant toy selection could be strong. who could that help? ? >> it helps. i think there are significant tailwinds that will benefit from it. we think for all intents and purposes it kicked off when they went deep on promotion for the "star wars" toy launch and that momentum will probably be restarting given that the movie's relaunching in a few weeks.
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>> oliver, the toy thing is simple to keep track of. i saw a statistic today that the prices are up 30% as more tech is integrated into some of these things. do you think that's been priced into some of these names? >> i do think toys is a big idea. the name we do like is target. what i would say about target, 15% of their toys assortment is proprietary to target. so there's upside opportunity. you're right. the integration of electronics and wearables and the toys, it's a big factor. so that will be exciting. another name we like is costco. costco always has a compelling toy selection as well. we're very happy with what we receive at target. we also like what we've seen seen with the apple watch and ipad as well as some of the invasion they're doing in there. >> i guess, charles, the key question is how big are the promotion, whether you're a consumer or investor in these
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retail names. the other thing is what do o they do when they go out for the retails and door buster deals. are retailers getting a bump from that as well? >> i think it's important that people don't really go out and shop black friday, thanksgiving night. they're out to buy, and they're out to buy the door busters. if someone picks off a full prize item, the retailer really wins big time there. but our view is you don't wait in line, you don't get away from your family, and you don't do the things you have to do to get to those stores on black friday and thanksgiving just to browse. you're in there to buy and you know exactly what you want when you walk in the door. >> oliver, sorry, i cut you auchlt but what were you going to say about this whole dichotomy about prices and promotions and whether it even matters whether retailers might have matters under promotion because they're trying to capture market share and race for spending dollars.
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>> yes, sara. it's a combination of both factors. the reality is we've had a warmer season this year. a lout of outerwear is on sale. when you think old navy and macy's, there are deals. you're right, sara. adding convenience to the customer and gaining traffic share, you have to participate on this day and it does remain a really fun day especially for millennials. i agree with courtney. the mall is a great experience. but the mall is higher in terms of consumers looking for more and more screens. sara, as you saw in the target press release, buying online and in the store is big as well as consumers are looking for convenient ways to get in and out of store sthoos this leads us to one of the existential debates. if you were ran o'shea's retailing, would you be fighting to establish a prime of your own, a delivery service of your own, or do you want these consumers to come to your door to get this stuff?
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>> i want both. i'm a utopian. i want both. one of the things we focus on prime a lot is it's not just free shipping but content. that's one of the things we noticed yesterday, the discount on the basic tablet for amazon, the basic fire, is now down to $35. that's pretty cheap to enter an ecosystem that's got a lot of content and amazon has spent a lot of money on content. we think that's the real game-changer. it's not that hard to ship free. it's more difficult to develop a system. we've seen with apple, it cost as lot of money but over time it cost as lot of money. our feeling is you need to be in both. brick and mortar and online. they're still 40% of retail sales. makes online 7% if my math is correct. brick and mortar aren't going anywhere. i don't think amazon -- amazon doesn't need to go into brick
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and mortar but the brick and mortar guys need to be online. they don't have to be as good as amazon. that's an unrealistic expectation. would by my goal. if i ran o'shea's retail store, that's what i would do. buy online, ship from the store. if you want to come into my brick and mortar store, that's a great. that's a win for me and i can sell you more stuff. >> we're going to get out a lot of numbers. shoppertrak, adobe, everything, 4%, 3%, 2%, what numbers are we going to beadlast year in terms of holiday spending? >> i'm thinking 2% to 3% growth. it's a little less than last year. cautious optimism. better than last year but still not extremely exciting, 2% to 3%. so that's what i'm thinking overall. >> guys, thanks so much for that. interesting insight. charles o'shea and oliver chen.
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coming up, francois hollande visiting moscow as he continues his campaign for a coalition between russian and syria. let me show you. okay. our thinkorswim trading platform aggregates all the options data you need in one place that lets you visualize that information for any options series. okay, cool. hang on a second. you can even see the anticipated range of a stock expecting earnings. impressive... what's up, tim? for all the confidence you need. td ameritrade. you got this.
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u.s.-led coalition but he rep t repeated his attacks against turkey. our geoff cutmore has more. geoff, once again. >> reporter: hi, carl. let's just deal with this issue of the downing of the russian bomber. you know, both sides in this issue said they didn't want to escalate the situation, but the language that's been used over the last day or so has only done that first at that press conference after the meeting of president hollande and putin. he used the occasion to suggest that turkey was taking oil from the isis terrorist group and also said they knew it was a russian bomber they were going to shoot down. president erdogan said russia shouldn't play with fire making these allegations and in turn has suggested it's russia's ally syria that's taking isis oil. so the spat continues over what
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happened and why this russian bomber was shot down on the turkish border. the language remains very undiplomatic. as we understand it at this hour, a request has been made for a meeting on monday. the turks requesting a sitdown with presidents erdogan and putin. we'll just have to see whether that takes place. but let's just roll back to that other very important issue. president hollande of france came here, sate sat down for three hours with president putin, and afterward there did a pier to have been progress made in targeting isis. three key points here. one, they would extend the terrorist targets and they would make extra efforts to make sure they were targeting the isis
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group and not other groups that are fighting bashar al. back to you. >> brigadier general mark hemet. good to see you again. >> thank you. >> where does this go. the kremlin taking economic sanctions actions. what happens next between these two countries and how far and how ugly does that relationship get? >> well, my sensing is that we'll get through this war of words in a very short order. the fact is turkey has nothing to gain by going up against russia. russia really has nothing to gain by cutting economic ties with turkey. i would expect in the near term this will come together and we'll focus on the most important aspect which is trying to defeat isil.
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>> does it mean anything beyond just words? what does that support actually look like because as it stands they're going about their own air strike campaign. >> what i think this does is, in fact, bring that air campaign being conducted by russia in line with the 65-member coalition so that they can work on a common effort. but i remain concerned that while we're bringing a military effort to defeat isil is going to take far more work than beyond the military aspect. it's going to take work in many other areas. >> they enjoy pretty good support. today they're two leaders who cannot afford to be seen or be
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pushed around no matter how high the steaks. how high does that play out especially if they meet in paris in december? >> well, both of them are appearing to their publics. erdogan is trying to show he's tough on foreign intervention and people in hiss airspace. he's lost a lot of public support in the last few months but this has pushed his numbers up. putin as well, every time he shows that he's tough, he gets greater public support. so i think both of these leaders are pandering for public support within their own country, but in the foreign relations, i think everybody understands that they're going to have to talk tough at home but scope down in their diplomatic activities. >> what's your prediction as to how ba share al assad is dealt with in syria between russia and the west, which continues to have stark disagreement about whether or not he should remain in power? >> at this point i think it's an issue of timing rather than an issue of fundamental differences. i believe the united states
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finally realizes that this tough assad must go now policy is not working and what we ought to be focused on is a long run transition that eventually assad will go. he won't live forever. he will go. he doesn't need to be a prerequisite, but that that is the target in the short term. >> thank you for joining us today and your insight on these issues. general mark kimmitt. coming up, the retail sales who need a strong holiday. bill george weiing in on the retailers in the hot seat and twhoes are the rising stars. that's all coming up in "squawk on the street."
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not a particularly good day for media. this because of disney's 10k. now, we had barton crockett on, an analyst last hour who said, people knew this. we knew where the numbers were. nielsen numbers. nonetheless the market does seem to be reacting to that number, down $7 million as it is from a
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couple of years back, carl. >> meantime black friday has become one of the biggest sales seasons of the year for the auto industry. our own phil lebeau is live at a dealership in suburban chicago as who is profiting the most. hey, phil. >> hi, carl. who ice profiting. clearly the automakers. we're looking at a sales rate that could top $18 million for a third straight month. we went to a number of dealerships over the last several days, talked about what they're excelling, what they're sealing. almost all of them expected it to be rather brisk business over the next couple of days, taking advantage of today and tomorrow, people having a chance to walk around showrooms. on average the average insenty for the industry is going to be about $3,100 off with the transactions prices going up more than $1,000. they're going offset by paying a
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little more and by packaging the dealing in a much better way. >> there's a lot of set pricing. 20% off msrp, ford's friends and neighbors program with the no haggle price. people don't have a lot of time. if you package your deal in an easy-to-understand quick manner, it's going resonate well with consumers, which we've seen. >> we talk about how trucks and vans are in demand. this is the expectation in terms of sales this month. donees in saevls. the reason that those are in demand in addition to all of the other factors we talked about with the economy, look at the price of gas. it's down at about $2.05. jackie deangelis talking about more than half selling it for under $2.
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people are coming into the showrooms saying, hmm, i'd like an suv. that's what's going to be selling today. >> phil, there's this debate and it sounds like you would come down as not seeing the end of surge and seeing. this is a debate about whether we're at the peak of auto sales because it's been so strong for essentially months. >> mm-hmm. stronger than expected, sara. most see we could see sales edge a little bit higher next year but we're pretty close to the peak in terms of this auto cycle. the real question is how much will we be seeing. if it's 16.5 or $17 million, that would be a reasonable pullback. if it's greater than that, that's the concern that you hear right now from investors saying we're at the top. how much will it pull back over the next 18 months.
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>> good question. we'll have to see. thank you very much. phil lebeau live on the auto story. up next, bill george weighing in on the winners and losers and which ceos are going to be the winners this holiday season. we'll be right back with "squawk on the street."
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all right. i'm tyler mathisen and here is your cnbc news update at this hour. paris holding its first formal gathering since the november 13th terror attack. french president fran swal hollande. they gathered inside a courtyard at the french national monument. air traffic growth is expected to grow over the next two decades. they blame a weaker global economy, and china's economic slowdown. despite the new forecast, the group still says china will overtake the u.s. as the world's largest passenger market by 2029. authorities blame a tainted celery and onion mix for a multi-state e. coli outbreak. it was used in costco's chicken salad and sickened at least 19 people. they stopped selling it and no deaths were reported. montana makes the news for having the worst drivers -- yes
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-- in the country. a car insurance group finds that montana ranks tops for speeding, sixth for careless driving, and eighth for failure to obey traffic rules. who came in second? south carolina and new mexico. they were tied. where was new jersey in this? that's your cnbc news update. back to you. >> you sound like you speak from experience, ty. >> tyler mathisen, thanks a lot. take a listen. we've 'nounsed that we're actually going to be closing more store this next year because as the internet, you know, has become so strong for us, consumers are looking at their options, determining where they're going to shop, and they don't have to have that immediate convenience of going to the store next door. they'll drive a little bit further and they'll also know that we'll deliver it to them in a very short period of time.
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i think when you put all those options together, we're able to say we don't need 800 locations across the country. we can have fewer than that. that's kind of how we rationalized it. >> bill george is a cnbc contributor. bill, it's good to have you back. >> thanks, carl. >> you've got a list of ceos under you. terry's one of them. >> yes. >> why? >> this is the second year in decline of stores. i was under hudson department stores to macy's and target. i can tell you they're losing the millennials and the gen xers, and they're losing out online and they don't have any presence #anymore in the loernld. >> is this is end of a lime time
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of brand of retail? >> i think it's tough. nordstrom's is holding its own. neiman marcus and sax are pulling back from a national expansion. they're getting there. macy's got a tough time. you heard him say they're going to close stores. i they that's going to continue. too much space too, many malls. people don't want go to the malls. >> i guess the hard part to figure out with this and especially for ta team like macy's which is known to have best in class management with terry and others. they've been there for a while and they're considered by investors topnotch. how much is it an execution problem with management where they can't figure out how to get out of the slump and how much is it the secular change in getting out of it. >> it's clearly secular but that's a strategic problem. i think terry's done a good job the last ten, 12 years. every decade or five years you have to adapt.
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you see the way howard schultz has done that. >> is anyone in the department store industry doing it? >> i think nordstrom's is holding its own at the high end. you've got to pick your niche. you've got to find where you're going to fit. >> speaking of adapting, the other two on your list are mcmillan and lambert. >> yeah. >> what does mcmillan have to do? ? >> he's an outstanding ceo. i much like mcdonald, they're losing out on the low end to dollar general, to costco on sam's club and amazon and online. they haven't got it figured out. i eats going to take a along time to get that fully up to speed. >> isn't he doing exactly what you would expect him to do? >> he's got t have the tomb do
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it and he does have the patience of his largest sharehold which for himhealto family. >> i think he deserves it. i think it's a three- to five-year turnaround. he's a good guy, first-class ceo. another guy is eddie lambert from series. we follow that. sears/kmart over the years. hard to imagine what he can do given what he has done. >> unlike mcmilan and lundgren, he's not retailer. he's a financier and real estate guy and keeps trying to sell off the re, what good is the real estate if it's underneath a mall store which is declining or a mega city store which they can't figure out what to do with it. that real estate, in my opinion, not very valuable. i think sears is -- they passed the point of no return a decade
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ago. i don't see them ever coming back. no one i know shop there. in fact, students laugh at me. they laugh at me. they go to home depot and target and mother and baby and get their home equipment at home depot. they're not going. >> we talk about large didn't stores but some of the worst performers so far this year are ralph lauren, gap, michael kors at the very bottom of the list. does this speak to issues or not much ingenuity when it comes to changing it? >> it's a little like the social media field. they've got to keep changing. they're not keeping up. this millennial change, sara, is having a dramatic impact and people haven't figured it out yet. i think brian cornell is doing the best job with the retail online. he's on top of it and he's getting there. but i can tell you a lot of these clothing retailers haven't figured out the trend changing
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and they even got to get trend four. if you're not trend forward today, you're behind. you can't hang with the old crowd. that's where the action is. >> as nike hit as record high right now. >> how about under armour. that's why it's hot. there'll be more. there will be more. >> bill, it's good to have your insight. >> thanks for having me here. >> thank you so much. >> good to see you. >> when we come back on this black friday, we're live at the biggest mall of n the country. the top searl this year at the mall of america. plus, a rough day for media as we've been talking about all morning. time warner and disney leading the way lower. a lot more on that in just a moment. conquer the weather.
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that's ll ll ll lly largely bec disney. we had analysts on earlier who said, we knew the numbers. nonetheless it's pressuring media broadly. of course, the continued concerner cord cutting, cord shaving, people simply not having as many connections via cable and, therefore, not as many subscribers. this is after a woman named emanunuelle herzer filed a lawsuit, if you will, claiming the shareholder is not well enough to actually dictate his own health care procedures, if you will. today or actually over let's call it the last 24 hours his legal time has fired back with a
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counter argument and counter claim. they also have a statement out saying that they see that action is meritless, riddled with lies and a despicable invasion of his privacy saying that herzer will stop at nothing to pursue her own personal agenda. they say it's preposterous. of course, people are focused the health of mr. redstone. it is interesting to know emannuelle herzer was his health care agent and she's now been replaced in that duty by philippe dauman. i'm not sure if that's something you want. it does sort of have an interesting dynamic. this is not going to end here. we're going to see some
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back-and-forth, one would expect. the judge may at least have a preliminary hearing in the not-too-distant future. for his part, redstone says he's perfectly capable of carrying out the duties as chairman at this point. there is an irrevocable trust. seven employees, not his family, who will oversee the voting shares, the controlling stakes and national amusement that they'll see upon his death. >> of course, everything getting looked at. they report he hasn't been on a conference call so far this year. i mean he's in his 90s. >> he's 92. perhaps even older. maybe 94. he is in declining health, there's no question about that. and they make -- in their statements his attorneys don't mistake that as well talking about his speech being impacted, his mobility, of course, being impacted.
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but for his mental state, they say he's perfectly capable of administering his own care. if he's not able to, philippe dauman will carry on. black friday shopping continues. to find out what some of the top searls are this year, let's bring in jill renslow, the senior vice president of marketing and development at mall of measure. jill, where are the biggest lines today? >> good morning. it's a very energetic morning. we started at 6:00 last night and it's going strong. lots of traffic, lots of shopping bags, lots of energy. it's been fantastic. >> would you say it's stronger than last time this year or about the same or worse? >> we're trending very similar to last year. the numbers pick up as we build momentum on black friday, but
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very similar to last year. with the short holiday season we're seeing a great deals early on and shoppers are taking advantage. a lot of shopping bags in the property. >> i'm looking at the directory here of some of your major anchor department stores as they're calling it. we were having a conversation with bill george from harvard university talking about them being under praerchl looks like you have sears and macy's, both of which have been struggling this year. has that hurt overall mall traffic? >> it hasn't hurt overall mall traffic. what's a great is we have over 500 stores and dining and attractions. we're seeing a lot of a great traffic for all of our other traffic. >> there's this story about mall traffic getting smaller and smaller, the demise of the american shopping mall. obviously mall of america is a big case because it's such a tourist destination.
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how would you review some of the reports and claims that people just aren't going to malls anymore? >> you know what? there ooh's a lot of options for shopping. but you know what? mall of america takes advantage of the digital capen'ts and we enhance the physical experience. what's unique is we have the benefit of having more than just shopping. it is about entertainment and attractions. you can see behind me, for example, we're making it snow inside mall of marek. it's a twitter activated blizzard. people can help make it snow. we're also looking for new innovative ways to make it fun and exciting. >> maybe that will do snog deal with some of retailers' problems. they're dealing with warm weather. i did want to ask you about security. have you done anything in the wake of recent paris attacks to ramp up security at mall of america? >> yes. we recognize consumers are concerned with what's happening
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with convenience internationally, and security and safety is our number one priority. so consumers are going to see enhanced presence. it's normal for us to amp up security during the holiday season. you know, we want to make sure people know there's going to be more security presence as well as police officers. we want to keep everyone feeling safe. >> jill renslow, thanks for the report from mall of america where there is fake snow today. thanks for joining us. >> thank you so much. >> over 100 million people expected to go shopping on this black friday shopping but will there be more.
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one of the biggest shopping days of the year is under way. with customers looking for great deals on everything from electronics to furniture. joining us here at post 9 is ethan allen's president and chairman and ceo. we want to ask you about black friday shopping. but we should mention what's been going on with your company. and you just won a big activist battle for places on the board. is this a big victory for you? >> well, you know we're very
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gratified that our stockholders overwhelmingly voted. jim cramer, but we brought it on his show a few months back that one of the hedge funds said ethan allen is a great company because we own a lot of properties and perhaps we could sell the properties and do a, that's not our business. >> you're talking about sandal asset management with a push to put yourself up for sale. they'll continue to be active and scrutinize your business, have you talked to them since the vote? >> they were there at the annual meeting. and we're very happy to have shareholders have their points made aware. wean bn around for 82 years and we've been profitable for 82 years. and the reason is because we have always remained relevant. and that's what ethan allen's story is all about. as long as you're relevant, you no, all shareholders have a point of view. as i said i'm very gratified
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that overwhelmingly our stockholders supported our slate and all the proposals that we had. >> one of the criticism and i think this gets into your business, is that restoration hardware has come up and grown 20% revenue growth versus what you're seeing what are they doing right in your industry. >> we are vertically integrated company. we are an interior design company. we're 1500 interior designers, 200 design centers in north america, 100 outside. and about five years back, when you look at restoration hardware. three or four years back, we had to make a decision. should we maintain our interior design strategy or should we go and develop an import model? give up all our manufacturing, by products from let's say off-shelf, bring them in, large quantities and had sell them. if we had done that, our sales would go up and we said no.
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we have to think long term, we consolidated from 30 manufacturing plants in north america to six. we built two in the last six years. we have 200 design centers, which are close to about 70% of where our customers live. our strategy was to reposition ourselves. in our manufacturing. we built two new plants, one in mexico and one in honduras in the last six years. that required us to make sure that before we turned the engine, the switch, which we did in october, october our sales were up 33%. our written orders. because of the fact that we also are ready with our offerings. we are maintaining 70% of product offerings and september and october which i always come in here -- >> you wouldn't want to leave that. >> this is for you. >> this is our november direct-mail magazine. which showed products have just been introduced in september and october. and we turned the switch, amazing results, now we're seeing the benefit of what we've
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done in the last five years. throughout this period we have been very profitable. 55% gross margin. 11% operating margin. the highest in our industry. yes, our stock price has not reflected that. but you know, i think what we are doing now, i believe that the stock price as a result of being positioned right and we are positioned right. >> one question on the macro, i've seen some analysis in the past few days arguing that household formation is in the midst of a breakout. above $1 million for five quarters or something like that is that true, are people finally moving out of their mom's basement? >> it's overall it is positive. yet people are still concerned. let's face it today people are concerned about what's taking place internationally. people are concerned about what's happening domestically. so people are cautious. for us that's good news. because it also means that people are cautious, they
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believe in great quality. overall, consumer confidence is better. household formations are better. having said all of those things, you still somewhat cautious. >> how much business are you doing online? >> our business online is relatively small, because our 90% of the people who coming into our design centers visit our website. in fact this, we're black friday, black friday, we did something whoops, hold on. >> it happens. >> just here, anyway. >> black friday. >> in, in black friday, what we did this time is, we -- just loose, right? i'll fix it. >> welcome to our lives. >> not ethan allen quality. now with black friday, we just do something amazing. we said coming to our design centers, meet a designer and
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you'll get 30% off one item. think of that. around you have 30, 40, 60, 70%. people don't know what kind of sales you're having. we've had amazing results. >> but you have to go in-store to do it. >> we want them to. the that's what we're talking about the fact of bringing them into the stores. not only we're increasing our e-commerce business. when they come in they meet a designer and the process starts. >> a different strategy, farooq, thank you for coming on, the ceo of ethan allen. when we come back, live inside ebay's black friday war room. what they see. and media having a tough day, viacom and disney trading lower. disney leading the dow close to the lows of the session. we'll check in with kara swisher in a moment.
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. good friday morning, it is 8:00 a.m. at disney headquarters in burbank, california. 11:00 a.m. on wall street and "squawk alley" is live. ♪ ♪
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♪ ♪ good friday morning, john and kayla out today. but sara sizen en isen is pullg shift. >> it is black friday, and we want to get a closer look at what tech companies are watching today. our josh lipton is live at ebay's war room in san jose with more. good morning, josh. >> good morning, carl, i'm here with carl lawton, he is ebay's head of north america, thank you for joining us. >> we were here earl

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